Goats and Donkeys Transform Lives in Darfur

The operation of our goat loan programme requires the beneficiaries to pass on six of the offspring from their initial goats received to another poor family at the end of two years - we refer to this process as 'goat rotation'. During the past month Selei village which became a KIDS FOR KIDS village in 2007 has completed its second goat rotation. 21 poor households initially received goat loans and these initial beneficiary families each passed on 6 of their female offspring to another 21 poor families in 2010. Now in December 2012 20 of these recipient families have in turn passed on 6 of their female offspring to another group of poor households. This means that as a result of the initial goat loans to the village a further 42 households have received help and around 250 additional goats have been distributed to other households. This means that 30% of the households in the village have now received goats as a result of the initial KIDS FOR KIDS' loans. This shows just how valuable your support to us for the goat and donkey loan programme is - you are not just helping one family to find its way out of poverty but through your generosity you help to spread the benefits more widely in the community. The person who has performed best under the goat loan programme in Selei is a lady called Nama Ahmad who even after passing on 6 goats to another family has a flock of 20 goats having initially received just 6.

Our Project Staff in Darfur regularly monitor the performance of the goats provided under our loan programme and in September they visited Tikalat village which received its initial goat loans in 2011. At that time 23 households received 115 female and 7 male goats giving a total of 122 goats and these have now increased to 181 goats. The household with the highest number of goats is 12. The average milk production is 1 litre per day and the highest production is 2 litres per day. This means that these families are now able to provide milk to their children giving them vital protein and minerals to overcome their malnourishment and they often have surplus milk to sell enabling the family to pay for books and uniforms which enables them to send their children to school. Six goats really do make a significant difference.

.